VRE Mobile

Terrible experience; feels like an app from 2010. Permissions are a hot mess. Location permission is required or the app doesn’t work correctly. Provides value to VRE only for tracking. No customer value. Then camera access… a clever hack to verify the ticket isn’t a screen shot. Maybe use actual technology to do that (like every other train in the world) instead of inconveniencing riders. This app is a joke for transit serving the nation’s capital.

The app ticketing function does what it’s supposed to. The train status function does not. There’s never an indication that a train is delayed when it clearly is 10+ minutes past published arrival time. The two things that I extremely dislike are the forced camera access, though I understand the reasoning behind it to make sure the passenger isn’t displaying a manipulated screenshot instead of activating a ride. The other is the forced use of location to purchase tickets and also to activate a ride. There’s no reason to require location access when 1) it shouldn’t matter where I am when I buy tickets because I obviously am not going to be able to use them anywhere but onboard a VRE train for the limited stations that the train serves, and 2) the passenger location has nothing to do with validating a ride because the noted origin and destination points on the validated ride are per the points of origin and destination as purchased and are not changeable thereafter. Requiring location access to buy tickets and to validate rides is 100% unjustified snooping and spying on riders and is most likely to generate user data to sell to the countless data hoarders out there. Location access requirement needs to go away.

Who thought blue text on a blue banner was s good idea?

This app is great except for the fact that it won’t let me pay for a ticket. Even using the scan option for my card it returns an error.

This app was never great but now it can’t even do the most basic function. I’ve tried deleting, reinstalling, and other things but it simply won’t work.

Update 3March-Smart Benefits with split payment is working although not the most intuitive interface to get to split payments. The app continues to not load, log me out, and generally just lag. I cannot leave the app open and ticket displayed (as requested by VRE) as it will kill my battery by running both GPS and Camera. Overall, still not a great user experience. The latest version requires both the camera and the gps to be on the entire time. This is just unnecessary. At least every other time, the app logs me out and disables the thumb login. Also, trying to enter my smart benefit is proving to be a challenge. I will try again at the beginning of February to see if I can then. Should have beta tested but I guess that is what we are doing since ridership is low due to COVID. It would have been nice to have been asked to be a beta tester though.

Very few things work now that they have upgraded.

I dislike this “new” version very much. Now they won’t let us split payments for tickets and they want to track us.

Cant login, can’t reset my password, and being placed on “hold” via the provided number for customer service goes directly to a voicemail that is full. Well, not only did they mess up the app rollout and cancel the previous app version before having this version ready, they didn’t get this one right either. I can login to the website but when trying to login to the app it won’t recognize my email as a valid email. So I can’t fallow the instructions provided. And now every time I ride the VRE I’m concerned about having the occasional rigid conductor hassle me for not having a ticket.

App refuses to accept valid credentials. Have used previous version for years. Major FAIL For this upgrade.